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A Year in a Tree

This year I climbed a tree every month. Same tree. Same bough. Same day (or at least always in the first week of the month).
It was a chance to notice more, to witness the world working.
And it allowed me to pause, to escape from the rush for a short moment. To remember that there is a difference between Urgent and Important.
I enjoyed the way it helped me measure my year. To think about what had occurred in the past month and what my hopes for the weeks ahead were.
All in all: it has been a delightful experience. A simple, achievable, rewarding and fun New Year’s Resolution.
I highly recommend it to you for 2020.

January: Grown-ups are too busy to climb trees, right?

February: I settle in a fork of the tree to drink the tea I have brought. The oak’s dampness seeps slowly through my jeans as I listen to robins and the distant throbbing noise of a motorway, not muffled in the absence of forest foliage.

March: It is my third visit of the year to this fine old oak tree; a nice habit beginning to build. We are 65 days into 2019 already, and there’s still no sign of change here in the wood. Sitting up here on the third of my monthly climbs I realised that my own year is following the same pattern as the tree’s. I still feel as though the year is only just beginning, that I have not really got started or made much progress.

April: Up in the branches there is clearly a filling-up of the woodland. The tiny stream beneath my tree has more flow and burble and sparkle this month. I anticipate a sudden explosion of colour and volume in next month’s visit. To my surprise, for in my head I’d thought “April… Clocks Forward… Spring…”, I look up at the sky and get a feeling that it’s going to start snowing.

May: Suddenly both my year and my tree have burst into life. After four quiet, spare monthly visits to the wood, today I was taken aback by the explosion of life. Birds busy with spring, beautiful bluebells lying thick over the ground, and everywhere I look there is new growth, life, colour, energy, vibrancy. Damn, May is a hell of a good month to climb an oak tree.

June: Had I given it much thought when I began, I don’t suppose I would have imagined that June would be the wildest weather of the year so far. Torrential rain splashing on the lens, water streaming down my arms as I climbed. Oh, but the beauty of it all!

July: Today I almost didn’t bother – I’m just too busy.
And therefore today was exactly the day when it was most important to stick at building this new, simple habit.

August: August tree climb, in the nick of time.

September: September always feels to me like back to school time. A fresh start. Clean page. New pencil case. So today I find myself lingering up in the branches. Yes, the late summer sun and the ludicrous greenness of my wood have something to do with that. I’m wearing trousers for the first time in ages as I have to go and give my first talk of the season this evening. Back to London, back to meetings, back to a different sort of real life. So perhaps you’ll forgive me if I just hang around here up my tree for a few minutes longer…

October: October: How did it come to this so soon? From new beginnings and hopeful fresh starts, to winding down, loose ends and unfinished business. I feel as though this year has barely begun. Yet there are just 83 days until 2020!

November: I have a solution if you’re having one of those crazy, crazy weeks when you really, really, really don’t have time to do something like climbing a tree. My solution is: go and climb a tree. Sit up there for 5 minutes. Ask yourself the difference between what is Urgent and what is Important. Then return to the world…

December: I feel sad that this year in a tree is over. There is ice on the ground and the sun sits so low in the wood that I feel I am climbing higher than it as I reach up for the final time and haul myself up to my perch. I have grown fond of both the wood and the habit. I shall continue next year, but in a different tree. My year is ending in a mad rush. I’m exhausted, unfit, frazzled. But I’m also relieved and chuffed and excited: I have just managed, in the nick of time, to get both a new book and a new podcast out into the world. Neither existed even in my imagination when I first climbed this tree. It has been a good year.

 

 

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Grown-ups are too busy to climb trees, right? You spend two months driving the street in front of your house. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet. You spend six days clipping your nails. Fifteen months looking for lost items. Eighteen months waiting in line. Two years of boredom: staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal. One marathon two-hundred-day shower. Six weeks waiting for a green light. Three months doing laundry. Fifty-one days deciding what to wear. Nine days pretending you know what is being talked about. Two weeks counting money. Eighteen days staring into the refrigerator. Six months watching commercials. Four weeks sitting in thought, wondering if there is something better you could be doing with your time. Three-quarters of British kids spend less time outdoors than prisoners. Half of us spend 5 hours a DAY on our phones. A quarter of us do less than 30 minutes exercise a WEEK. And that is why I’m spending ten minutes climbing this tree. (h/t to David Eagleman and @studiocanoe for the stats.)

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February is a tricky month for tree climbers. The cold, driech, drabness of the weather makes heading out to the woods a little bit more of a duty than a delight. The climb is harder than it was in January (although I am noticeably more supple than I was after the Christmas sloth period) – the bark slick green and slippery my hands can't feel to grip. There is still no growth on the tree, no sign of hope for spring. But my heart springs to life when my foot slips slightly, and I remind myself that I need to concentrate, to be aware that I am high off the ground in a tree hundreds of years old. What a joy that realisation is! I settle in a fork of the tree to drink the tea I have brought (a progression of sorts from my recent foray up a small hill for a cup of tea). The oak’s dampness seeps slowly through my jeans as I listen to robins and the distant throbbing noise of a motorway, not muffled in the absence of forest foliage. I am very much enjoying my year of tree climbing, and already looking forward to returning to my tree in March to see what has changed – both in the wood and in myself. [Photo 3 is a side by side of January and February. Looking forward to the first green shoots…] #treeclimbing #goniceplacesdogoodthings @alpkit

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It is my third visit of the year to this fine old oak tree; a nice habit beginning to build. We are 65 days into 2019 already, and there’s still no sign of change here in the wood. I’m still wrapped up warm in a jacket and woolly hat. My hands are still cold as I grip the coarse bark and haul myself upwards. There is absolutely no hint of spring or buds of green yet. Sitting up here on the third of my monthly climbs I realised that my own year is following the same pattern as the tree’s. I still feel as though the year is only just beginning, that I have not really got started or made much progress. I had assumed that by now I would be further along with the book I am writing, that some work partnerships I am hoping for would have materialised, that I would be clearer in my mind about the journey I plan to make this summer. Up here it becomes clear to me then that my New Year plans and hopes are only just getting started. And yet the plain fact that I am back here up in these branches for the third time in 2019 makes that folly apparent. I really appreciate that this tree (I’m not yet ready to call it “my” tree) stands waiting for me week upon week until my next visit. That (to my eyes) the tree does not change in the slightest. It just is. And I have found myself anticipating my next trip out to these woods so that I can measure my own change against it. This month the evidence is disappointing, but also motivating. And I must beware measuring myself against a seemingly inert tree and year. For soon this oak’s year will accelerate. Probably by the next time I visit here, in fact, the tree will be bursting into action, unfurling a million fresh new leaves as it sucks every ounce of sunlight and energy out of the seasons to come. I must do the same. I make a pledge to myself before climbing down: by the time I return here next month I must ensure that my own year is budding with new growth and hope and bursting into life.

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Up in the branches there is clearly a filling-up of the woodland. The first three months of the year was like looking at an empty colouring book: the outlines all laid out but nothing filled in. Now the negative space and the gaps everywhere are fringed neatly and crisply with green. The tiny stream beneath my tree has more flow and burble and sparkle this month. I anticipate a sudden explosion of colour and volume in next month’s visit, like when a kid tires of carefully sticking to the lines, grabs the fattest, greenest felt pen she can find, and lets rip with filling the page. But not yet. Not yet. There are only the faintest beginnings of buds on the tips of my tree’s twigs as I pull myself upwards, worrying for the fourth time about the final heave up to the fork where I stand. It’s a big pull and a brief moment of balance, enough to give me pause each time that falling would really, really hurt. In the same way that spring is surging into activity, so too is my own year. For the first time since beginning this thrice-a-season little pilgrimage I felt almost too busy to bother. I’m finishing off the final details of one book and getting caught up with the surging busy-ness of getting going with my next book. Writing books is like the life of a wood: tiny seeds of ideas lie all around. Some germinate and sprout shoots. Few take hold. But the best one does now begin to grow. Nothing happens, nothing happens. But at last one day you look up and realise that the tree is mature now: it’s actually a tree. It’s actually a finished book. And all you can do from then onwards is hope that the roots are deep enough for it to last a good long time, that sufficient sunlight shines on it to nourish it, and that the seeds that form haphazardly upon its branches might grow into something new and good as well. To my surprise, for in my head I’d thought “April… Clocks Forward… Spring…”, I look up at the sky and get a feeling that it’s going to start snowing. There’s that dropping of temperature and the smell of coldness. I’m shivering and my toes are numb. It’s time to head down. I’m looking forward to whichever month I first climb this tree in shorts and a t-shirt.

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June Tree Climb.⠀ I’m climbing the same tree, to the same place every month this year. Had I given it much thought when I began, I don’t suppose I would have imagined that June would be the wildest weather of the year so far. Torrential rain splashing on the lens, water streaming down my arms as I climbed. ⠀ Oh, but the beauty of it all! A rainstorm in a forest is a good reminder of the reason why that wood can grow so green and thick. The soft bluebells of May are gone, replaced now by a tangle of brambles that I had to plough through to reach the base of my oak. I am almost certain that nobody but me climbs this tree, touches it, or perhaps even notices it. It is mine, all mine! Or at least it is mine for 15 minutes, once a month, for this single year out of the past 300 or so for which it has been steadily lapping up the summer sunshine and rainstorms here on the edge of the wood…

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Get a jar. Pour in sand. The jar is now full. There’s no room for any larger rocks. Get a jar. Add your biggest stones. Now fill up the remaining space with sand and pebbles. – I have one life. I have a squabillion emails to send or answer and an unfeasible, unrealistic To Do list. Sometimes there is simply not enough time to go climb a tree. Sad, but there we are. I have one life. These are the non-negotiable things I choose to prioritise (my big rocks): family, friends, exercise, sleep, enough work to keep a roof over our head, and climbing this tree once a month. After that I can pour in some sand into the gaps, answer a squabazillion emails, do social media, work a little harder to earn some more money or prestige. – I’ve been climbing this tree once a month all year. Today I almost didn’t bother – I’m just too busy. And therefore today was exactly the day when it was most important to stick at building this new, simple habit. – First put your large rocks in the jar. Only then reach for the sand.

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August tree climb, in the nick of time.

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I’m writing this here, where you see me (or perhaps don’t see me). High off the ground doing my monthly tree climb. Earlier in the year I used to sit up here for a while, even bring a flask of tea to drink. But the year got busy and the last 2 or 3 months it felt almost an inconvenience to dash up my tree and snap the photo. But September always feels to me like back to school time. A fresh start. Clean page. New pencil case. So today I find myself lingering up in the branches. Yes, the late summer sun and the ludicrous greenness of my aid have something to do with that. (I suspect that by next month the tree will look very different and I won’t be in short sleeves.) But there’s more too it than that. I’ve just finished a brilliant bicycle trip and I’ve got a bunch of exciting podcasts from it that I’m keen to work on. I’ve had a good idea for a new children’s book. And I have a mountain of interesting work to hurry up with for my Living Adventurously newsletter /book. Yet part of me still wants it to be summer. To be offline, barefoot and unhurried. I’m wearing trousers for the first time in ages as I have to go and give my first talk of the season this evening. Back to London, back to meetings, back to a different sort of real life. So perhaps you’ll forgive me if I just hang around here up my tree for a few minutes longer…

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How did it come to this so soon? From new beginnings and hopeful fresh starts, to winding down, loose ends and unfinished business. I feel as though this year has barely begun. Yet there are just 83 days until 2020! This year of tree climbing has made me pay attention, to notice the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the ebb and flow of my moods, the periods of chasing my tail and the times when things seem under control. Some months are sunny, some are not. Some days I dash up and down my tree, on others I have time to linger up on the branches. In other words: a normal year in a normal life. But this small monthly tree climb has marked and measured 2019 for me, and therefore helped me live it more consciously. * What will next month hold? Each time I climb here I ask this question. I anticipate that next time I’m here the leaves will be golden and falling. I might be wearing a hat and gloves. And I hope that I’ll have just about finished writing a book. That’s a lot of things for me to look forward to! What does the next month hold in store for you?

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January: Grown-ups are too busy to climb trees, right? February: I settle in a fork of the tree to drink the tea I have brought. March: I still feel as though the year is only just beginning, that I have not really got started or made much progress. April: Up in the branches there is clearly a filling-up of the woodland. The tiny stream beneath my tree has more flow and burble and sparkle this month. May: Suddenly both my year and my tree have burst into life. Damn, May is a hell of a good month to climb an oak tree. June: Torrential rain splashing on the lens, water streaming down my arms as I climbed. Oh, but the beauty of it all! July: Today I almost didn't bother – I'm just too busy. And therefore today was exactly the day when it was most important to stick at building this new, simple habit. August: August tree climb, in the nick of time. September: September always feels to me like back to school time. A fresh start. Clean page. New pencil case. So today I find myself lingering up in the branches. October: How did it come to this so soon? From new beginnings and hopeful fresh starts, to winding down, loose ends and unfinished business. November: I have a solution if you're having one of those crazy, crazy weeks when you really, really, really don't have time to do something like climbing a tree. My solution is: go and climb a tree. Sit up there for 5 minutes. Ask yourself the difference between what is Urgent and what is Important. Then return to the world… December: I feel sad that this year in a tree is over. There is ice on the ground and the sun sits so low in the wood that I feel I am climbing higher than it as I reach up for the final time and haul myself up to my perch. I have grown fond of both the wood and the habit. I shall continue next year, but in a different tree. My year is ending in a mad rush. I'm exhausted, unfit, frazzled. But I'm also relieved and chuffed and excited: I have just managed, in the nick of time, to get both a new book and a new podcast out into the world. Neither existed even in my imagination when I first climbed this tree. It has been a good year.

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January: Grown-ups are too busy to climb trees, right?
You spend two months driving the street in front of your house.
You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes.
For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet.
You spend six days clipping your nails.
Fifteen months looking for lost items.
Eighteen months waiting in line.
Two years of boredom: staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal.
One marathon two-hundred-day shower.
Six weeks waiting for a green light.
Three months doing laundry.
Fifty-one days deciding what to wear.
Nine days pretending you know what is being talked about.
Two weeks counting money.
Eighteen days staring into the refrigerator.
Six months watching commercials.
Four weeks sitting in thought, wondering if there is something better you could be doing with your time.
Three-quarters of British kids spend less time outdoors than prisoners.
Half of us spend 5 hours a DAY on our phones.
A quarter of us do less than 30 minutes exercise a WEEK.
And that is why I’m spending ten minutes climbing this tree.

February: February is a tricky month for tree climbers. The cold, driech, drabness of the weather makes heading out to the woods a little bit more of a duty than a delight. The climb is harder than it was in January (although I am noticeably more supple than I was after the Christmas sloth period) – the bark slick green and slippery my hands can’t feel to grip. There is still no growth on the tree, no sign of hope for spring. But my heart springs to life when my foot slips slightly, and I remind myself that I need to concentrate, to be aware that I am high off the ground in a tree hundreds of years old. What a joy that realisation is!
I settle in a fork of the tree to drink the tea I have brought (a progression of sorts from my recent foray up a small hill for a cup of tea). The oak’s dampness seeps slowly through my jeans as I listen to robins and the distant throbbing noise of a motorway, not muffled in the absence of forest foliage.
I am very much enjoying my year of tree climbing, and already looking forward to returning to my tree in March to see what has changed – both in the wood and in myself.

March: It is my third visit of the year to this fine old oak tree; a nice habit beginning to build. We are 65 days into 2019 already, and there’s still no sign of change here in the wood. I’m still wrapped up warm in a jacket and woolly hat. My hands are still cold as I grip the coarse bark and haul myself upwards. There is absolutely no hint of spring or buds of green yet.
Sitting up here on the third of my monthly climbs I realised that my own year is following the same pattern as the tree’s. I still feel as though the year is only just beginning, that I have not really got started or made much progress. I had assumed that by now I would be further along with the book I am writing, that some work partnerships I am hoping for would have materialised, that I would be clearer in my mind about the journey I plan to make this summer.
Up here it becomes clear to me then that my New Year plans and hopes are only just getting started. And yet the plain fact that I am back here up in these branches for the third time in 2019 makes that folly apparent.
I really appreciate that this tree (I’m not yet ready to call it “my” tree) stands waiting for me week upon week until my next visit. That (to my eyes) the tree does not change in the slightest. It just is. And I have found myself anticipating my next trip out to these woods so that I can measure my own change against it. This month the evidence is disappointing, but also motivating.
And I must beware measuring myself against a seemingly inert tree and year. For soon this oak’s year will accelerate. Probably by the next time I visit here, in fact, the tree will be bursting into action, unfurling a million fresh new leaves as it sucks every ounce of sunlight and energy out of the seasons to come. I must do the same. I make a pledge to myself before climbing down: by the time I return here next month I must ensure that my own year is budding with new growth and hope and bursting into life.

April: Up in the branches there is clearly a filling-up of the woodland. The first three months of the year was like looking at an empty colouring book: the outlines all laid out but nothing filled in. Now the negative space and the gaps everywhere are fringed neatly and crisply with green. The tiny stream beneath my tree has more flow and burble and sparkle this month. I anticipate a sudden explosion of colour and volume in next month’s visit, like when a kid tires of carefully sticking to the lines, grabs the fattest, greenest felt pen she can find, and lets rip with filling the page.
But not yet. Not yet. There are only the faintest beginnings of buds on the tips of my tree’s twigs as I pull myself upwards, worrying for the fourth time about the final heave up to the fork where I stand. It’s a big pull and a brief moment of balance, enough to give me pause each time that falling would really, really hurt.
In the same way that spring is surging into activity, so too is my own year. For the first time since beginning this thrice-a-season little pilgrimage I felt almost too busy to bother. I’m finishing off the final details of one book and getting caught up with the surging busy-ness of getting going with my next book. Writing books is like the life of a wood: tiny seeds of ideas lie all around. Some germinate and sprout shoots. Few take hold. But the best one does now begin to grow. Nothing happens, nothing happens. But at last one day you look up and realise that the tree is mature now: it’s actually a tree. It’s actually a finished book. And all you can do from then onwards is hope that the roots are deep enough for it to last a good long time, that sufficient sunlight shines on it to nourish it, and that the seeds that form haphazardly upon its branches might grow into something new and good as well.
To my surprise, for in my head I’d thought “April… Clocks Forward… Spring…”, I look up at the sky and get a feeling that it’s going to start snowing. There’s that dropping of temperature and the smell of coldness. I’m shivering and my toes are numb. It’s time to head down. I’m looking forward to whichever month I first climb this tree in shorts and a t-shirt.

May: (Can you spot me?!)Suddenly both my year and my tree have burst into life. After four quiet, spare monthly visits to the wood, today I was taken aback by the explosion of life. Birds busy with spring, beautiful bluebells lying thick over the ground, and everywhere I look there is new growth, life, colour, energy, vibrancy. Damn, May is a hell of a good month to climb an oak tree. I’m suddenly crazy-busy myself with one book published this month and another galloping ahead at full steam and a summer of adventure to plan. Busy, but good busy. Busy with purpose and momentum and possibility – like the view from up in my tree.

June: June Tree Climb.⠀
I’m climbing the same tree, to the same place every month this year. Had I given it much thought when I began, I don’t suppose I would have imagined that June would be the wildest weather of the year so far. Torrential rain splashing on the lens, water streaming down my arms as I climbed. ⠀
Oh, but the beauty of it all! A rainstorm in a forest is a good reminder of the reason why that wood can grow so green and thick. The soft bluebells of May are gone, replaced now by a tangle of brambles that I had to plough through to reach the base of my oak. I am almost certain that nobody but me climbs this tree, touches it, or perhaps even notices it. It is mine, all mine! Or at least it is mine for 15 minutes, once a month, for this single year out of the past 300 or so for which it has been steadily lapping up the summer sunshine and rainstorms here on the edge of the wood…

July: Get a jar. Pour in sand. The jar is now full. There’s no room for any larger rocks.
Get a jar. Add your biggest stones. Now fill up the remaining space with sand and pebbles.

I have one life. I have a squabillion emails to send or answer and an unfeasible, unrealistic To Do list. Sometimes there is simply not enough time to go climb a tree. Sad, but there we are.
I have one life. These are the non-negotiable things I choose to prioritise (my big rocks): family, friends, exercise, sleep, enough work to keep a roof over our head, and climbing this tree once a month. After that I can pour in some sand into the gaps, answer a squabazillion emails, do social media, work a little harder to earn some more money or prestige.

I’ve been climbing this tree once a month all year. Today I almost didn’t bother – I’m just too busy.
And therefore today was exactly the day when it was most important to stick at building this new, simple habit. –
First put your large rocks in the jar. Only then reach for the sand.

August: August tree climb, in the nick of time.

September: I’m writing this here, where you see me (or perhaps don’t see me). High off the ground doing my monthly tree climb.
Earlier in the year I used to sit up here for a while, even bring a flask of tea to drink. But the year got busy and the last 2 or 3 months it felt almost an inconvenience to dash up my tree and snap the photo.
But September always feels to me like back to school time. A fresh start. Clean page. New pencil case.
So today I find myself lingering up in the branches.
Yes, the late summer sun and the ludicrous greenness of my aid have something to do with that. (I suspect that by next month the tree will look very different and I won’t be in short sleeves.)
But there’s more to it than that.
I’ve just finished a brilliant bicycle trip and I’ve got a bunch of exciting podcasts from it that I’m keen to work on. I’ve had a good idea for a new children’s book. And I have a mountain of interesting work to hurry up with for my Living Adventurously newsletter /book.
Yet part of me still wants it to be summer. To be offline, barefoot and unhurried.
I’m wearing trousers for the first time in ages as I have to go and give my first talk of the season this evening. Back to London, back to meetings, back to a different sort of real life.
So perhaps you’ll forgive me if I just hang around here up my tree for a few minutes longer…

October: How did it come to this so soon? From new beginnings and hopeful fresh starts, to winding down, loose ends and unfinished business. I feel as though this year has barely begun. Yet there are just 83 days until 2020!
This year of tree climbing has made me pay attention, to notice the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the ebb and flow of my moods, the periods of chasing my tail and the times when things seem under control.
Some months are sunny, some are not. Some days I dash up and down my tree, on others I have time to linger up on the branches. In other words: a normal year in a normal life. But this small monthly tree climb has marked and measured 2019 for me, and therefore helped me live it more consciously.
*
What will next month hold?
Each time I climb here I ask this question.
I anticipate that next time I’m here the leaves will be golden and falling. I might be wearing a hat and gloves. And I hope that I’ll have just about finished writing a book. That’s a lot of things for me to look forward to!
What does the next month hold in store for you?

November: I have a solution if you’re having one of those crazy, crazy weeks when you really, really, really don’t have time to do something like climbing a tree.
My solution is: go and climb a tree.
Sit up there for 5 minutes.
Ask yourself the difference between what is Urgent and what is Important.
Then return to the world…

December: I feel sad that this year in a tree is over. There is ice on the ground and the sun sits so low in the wood that I feel I am climbing higher than it as I reach up for the final time and haul myself up to my perch. I have grown fond of both the wood and the habit. I shall continue next year, but in a different tree. My year is ending in a mad rush. I’m exhausted, unfit, frazzled. But I’m also relieved and chuffed and excited: I have just managed, in the nick of time, to get both a new book and a new podcast out into the world. Neither existed even in my imagination when I first climbed this tree. It has been a good year.

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Comments

  1. David Posted

    Alastair, I would commend to you a well-known poem by Robert Frost, “Birches” (see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches). Your whimsical year long love affair with this tree brought this poem back to mind. I have always loved the last line of this poem: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” Enjoy!

    Reply
  2. Katherine in the US Posted

    Not dangerously high, my boots in fact on the ground, but I’m in the lilac tree by the garage, trying belatedly as always to trim the spent blooms and staying to shape it, take off the branches that block the path, the ones hitting the garage roof, also thinking of the dictum that it will do better if you take out the thickest leaders, but lacking Uncle Gus’ confidence when he whacked back my mother’s lilac and it was years before it bloomed again, still I stayed out there, already in my yellow slicker when the rain started, but now sopping wet as it gained power, and poured down my uplifted arms as I reached up to another spot that needed pruning. And still I kept on, stubbornly, and now more and more joyously, feeling the power of nature, and wanting to stay and keep being a part of it. That might have been my happiest moment from all the years we lived in that country house.

    Reply

 
 

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